


Udjat

by ExpatGirl



Series: Episode Codas: Hieroglyphs [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s11e10 The Devil in the Details, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, Mostly I'm just angry, Not Beta Read, Post-Episode: s11e10 The Devil in the Details, gratuitous references to ancient Egyptian symbols, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 18:16:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5835898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExpatGirl/pseuds/ExpatGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Satan couldn’t figure out a cell phone, apparently. That, or over-the-top pageantry was just inherent to archangels.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Udjat

**Author's Note:**

> This follows "Adze-on-Block".

Satan couldn’t figure out a cell phone, apparently. That, or over-the-top pageantry was just inherent to archangels. Both were equally likely, Dean decided, as he lowered his gun and watched the demon pinned to the floor gurgle and twitch uselessly against the angel blades buried in its wrists.  He had a strong suspicion that the thing’s own blood had been used to draw the devil’s trap that surrounded it. And the message on the wall behind it.

 **I HAVE THE FIRST SEAL** , it ran, in 3-foot-high letters. **STULL TOMORROW SUNSET NO TRICKS. SEE YOU SOON. L**

“Seal?” Sam asked. “What does he mean by that?”

“Who the hell knows?” Dean asked, holstering his gun. It’d been a lure: the miraculous resurrection of a dead man in Junction City, rising up unscathed from the morgue slab and walking away. Astonishing, considering that the man in question had fallen into the teeth of a combine harvester. _Not such a divine intervention, after all_ , Dean thought, staring at the demon. It didn’t seem to be able to say anything, just weakly flash its eyes from black to brown as it looked at them.

Sam frowned and knelt, dispatching it with a quick, practiced movement of Ruby’s knife. He withdrew the angel blades, with some difficulty, and wiped off the traces of blood.

“No tricks,” Sam said, handing one of the blades to Dean and putting the other in his belt. “Is he warning us or reassuring us?”

“Does it matter?” Dean asked, feeling seasick.

“When you’re dealing with the devil, Dean? Yeah, the details matter.”

“Either way, we got a location and an ETA.”

“But we still haven’t managed to get in touch with Rowena again. And we still don’t know if Alastair's exorcism will work.”

“It worked on Cas before, right? When he was the one doing the possessing? Well,” Dean said, pouring salt over the body of the twice-dead man and looking around for the container of gasoline, “he’s the one getting ridden now, so…”

“So that’s _hardly_ a sure thing, Dean. It’s not even a, a half-sure thing.” 

“Yeah, I get that, Sam. It’s less than ideal. But we’ve _got_ to get him out of there.” He lit a match and dropped it. The fire roared to life, and they made their way to the entrance of the barn. It had rained recently, which would impede the fire, but it would do the job.

“And what if Lucifer _is_ the only one who can bring Amara down? No one wants to find another way more than me, but...” Sam began. He didn’t give Dean a chance to reply--probably because he knew what the answer would be--but instead put his phone to his his ear: “Hi, yeah, I’d like to report a fire about...2 miles south of Old Highway 40. About ten miles from the city limits, yeah. My name? Um. James Novak.” He hung up.

Dean stared at him. “James…Novak.”

Sam shrugged. “I’ve had possession on my mind a lot lately, I guess.”

“We’re getting him out, Sam.”

“Okay, Dean. We’ll get him out. But...let’s not play our hand until we know what at least _some_ of our cards are, alright?”

They both climbed into the car, each in their own bubble of  personal despair. Behind them, the roof of the barn began to catch fire.

****

The sky above Stull flamed rose gold when the devil showed up, appearing from thin air with a Starbucks cup in his hand.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, taking a sip.

“Since when do you drink coffee?” Sam asked, fighting down the urge to reach for the set of angel blades he had in his jacket. Lucifer was too far away, leaning against a short stone pillar topped by a downward-looking angel. Well, points to the guy for set dressing.

“This?” Lucifer asked, raising the cup. He shook his head, confused. “He keeps thinking about it for some reason. I have to say, it’s not very good, even with eight sugars in it. Must be an acquired taste.”

Dean tensed beside him, like he’d touched a live wire, but he kept his voice calm. “You buy your prisoners coffee now, huh? Real humane of you.”

Lucifer crushed the cup in his fist and it evaporated in a puff of smoke. He stayed where he was. “He’s not my prisoner, Dean.”

“Then let him go.” 

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “Alright, fine. If you want to get _technical_ about it, I guess he _is_ my prisoner, in the sense that he can’t leave or do anything.” 

“Yeah, that would pretty much be the definition of the word prisoner,” Dean snarled.

“But I visualize it more like a symbiotic relationship,” Lucifer continued, coolly. “Like we discussed: quid pro quo.”

“Yeah, your whole Kevorkian spiel, I remember.”

“Right, sure. We’re still, ah, mid- _quid_ at the moment, so I thought I might as well make his pre- _quo_ stay as comfortable as possible.”

Sam’s eyes were sharp points of anger, leveled on Lucifer.“Does that include a beatdown? Pretty sure I remember you mentioning one of those.”

“That was a formality,” Lucifer said dismissively. “Practically a handshake, in my family.” He turned his attention to Dean. “Besides,” he said, and his voice grew insinuating and pointed, the tip of a poisoned blade, “he expected no better from _me_.”

Sam saw Dean jerk back slightly at the words, but couldn’t understand why.

“Can it,” Dean said, roughly. “How do we know you’re not lying? Why would you wait to kill him at the end when you could just...do it now?” He swallowed thickly. “How do we know he’s not already dead?”

Lucifer frowned. “Do you believe that, Sam?” he asked. “Or is that just Dean’s natural pessimism showing through?”

“Dean’s got a point.”

“ _Sam_ ,” Lucifer said, sounding hurt. He finally moved forward a few feet, growing indistinct in the gathering twilight, the familiar line of his shoulders becoming dark and ominous. “I once told you that I’d never lie to you, never trick you. Don’t you remember?” 

“You _did_ trick me. That’s how I ended back up in Hell with you in the first place.”

“No, _I_ didn’t trick you. That was Rowena. I told her I needed to speak with you face-to-face, that I needed leverage. The actual method, I left up to her. There’s no accounting for the deceit of witches.”

“Semantics,” Sam said.

“There are only two things in life, Sam: nothing and semantics,” the devil said, smiling. “Anyway. I told Castiel I could beat the Darkness. It’s only fair that he gets to see me do it before I perform my charitable act.”

“Forgive me for thinking that you’re full of shit,” Dean spat.

Lucifer’s eyes narrowed dangerously, the way Castiel’s once had, when he’d leaned in close like a thundercloud and demanded Dean’s respect. Dean felt a faint electric tingle on his skin.

“You think whatever you like, Dean,” Lucifer said, cold and unblinking as a star, “as long as you do your job.” His appearance of good humor returned suddenly. “But hey, if it’ll help team morale, I’ll see if I can get him to chat. Unlikely. He hasn’t said a word since I got here. Just kind of...stares into space.”

“What?” Dean asked, his heart in his mouth. “What do you mean?”

“I figured he was probably upset about our altercation, but he still wouldn’t talk to me after I healed him. I mean, I know healing’s never been my milieu, but I thought I did a pretty decent job of it.” He looked thoughtful in the moonlight. “Of course, those were new injuries. It’s the lingering ones that tend to get you.”

“Shut up for two seconds,” Dean said, stepping towards Lucifer. “You said you can put him back at the wheel? Do it. Now.”

Lucifer drew back a little. “You’re bossy,” he said. “And short.” He raised his eyebrows at Sam, but Sam didn’t laugh. “Okay, fine. Let me see if I can find him. He’s been…” He put a hand up, freezing Dean and Sam in place. “Hold on.”

An odd, empty look came over Castiel’s face then, and Dean stared hard, pushing against the bounds of Lucifer’s force, willing some familiar spark to rise from the blank depths. But when those eyes blinked, seconds and years later, Dean knew it wasn’t him.

“He’s…” Lucifer said, shaking his head. His hold on them eased. “He’s talking about the strength-to-weight ratio of honeycomb structures. He seems…his case is even more serious than I thought. The sooner we finish this the better; this is painful to watch.”

Dean’s heart sank.

“He’s also craving...I think it’s alcohol?” He shook his head again. “Probably not a good idea. We need to be on our game. But hey, at least he’s talking, right? Do you want me to pass on a message?”

“Let him go, you evil son of a bitch!” All at once, Dean rushed forward, crashing head-on into Lucifer. He might as well have hit one of the stone monuments, for all the good it did. He landed on his back with a bruised shoulder and burning lungs.

“Which part of that did you want me to pass on?” Lucifer asked, looking down at him. “Or do you think you’d have better luck than me? I hear true love’s kiss is traditionally _very_ effective. Though I should warn you: he’s convinced that you think he betrayed you by saying yes. That will probably reduce its efficacy. Still, feel free to try.”

Dean lurched to his feet and staggered back over towards Sam.

“No? Just as well.” He drew his coat tighter around him. “I don’t think I could stand to see it.” He looked at them, at Dean’s horrified, livid face, Sam’s seething eyes. “I’m not mocking him. I’m being absolutely serious. Why do you think angels are forbidden from...engaging...with humans? Why do you think my Father declared it an abomination? You think that’s for _your_ protection?” He grabbed the top of headstone in front of him. It shattered. He took a deep breath.

“Anyway, Sam, Dean. This has been...an experience, but we need to keep our eyes on the prize.” He held out his hand. “Here’s what I came to show you.” In his palm there appeared a shaft of olive wood, plain and smooth, but jagged at the end.

“What is it?” Sam asked, holding Dean up by his shoulder.

“Every cage needs seals. This is one for hers.” Lucifer said. “Raphael’s Staff. Well, most of it anyway. This was the weapon he used in our final battle against the Darkness. He was...he was very skilled, but he almost didn’t make it, as you can see,” he said, pointing at the splintered end. “Michael and I pulled him away just in time. And the shard that stuck in her slowed her down, pinned her in place.” He threw it to them. Sam caught it reflexively, and it was warm in his hand, almost to the point of pain. “Hold on to that for me. I can’t risk being over-encumbered at the minute. I’m still hunting for a few things.” He tensed his shoulders, clearly a heartbeat away from flying off.

“Wait,” Dean said, suddenly regaining his power of speech. “I do have a message to pass on.”

“Oh? Let’s hear it.”

“This isn’t over.”

“Of course it isn’t over, Dean. I have three more seals to find, not to mention a trap to lay.”

“No, _this_ ”, Dean said, gesturing angrily towards Lucifer. “This isn’t over. You tell him I’m coming. Tell him...I’m bottom-lining it for him.” 

“That’s it? That’s the message?”

“That’s the message.”

“Well, I know it can’t be your eloquence he loves.” He straightened his coat. “But I’ll pass it on. Until later.”

The graveyard was dark and empty.

Sam gripped the staff until his knuckles turned white. “We have to get him out of there.”

They drove through the downtown dark, but their hearts burned in secret, bright and terrible. On the radio, the late-night Bible salesmen wailed _the truth shall set you free._

**Author's Note:**

> Nope! I'm still not over this one.


End file.
